Mrs. Gardiner had withdrawn to nurse a convenient headache. Mr. Gardiner had vanished into his study with a mutter and a brandy glass, where he might spend the next fortnight pretending no one had ever invented newspapers.
The masque would go on. Just… not for them.
Elizabeth set the quill down. “You ought to have gone.”
Jane turned. “And leave you here to—what? Sit at the window like a Brontë heroine and listen for horses?”
“I am not the invalid,” Elizabeth said. “It is not me they speak of when they mention heartbreak.”
Jane’s chin lifted. “No. But I will not pretend nothing has changed. He—”
“Do not.” Elizabeth’s voice cracked. “Please.”
The silence settled again. And then, soft, like peeling back the edge of a sealed letter:
“He was my friend, Jane. More than my friend.”
Jane came to her. Sat beside her. Took her hand without a word.
Elizabeth stared at the hearth, where a log popped and scattered sparks like warnings.
“I think,” she said slowly, “if I had told him sooner. If I had trusted him enough to be honest instead of clever. Perhaps none of this would have happened.”
Jane’s brows creased. “You cannot mean that.”
“But I do.” Elizabeth gave a short, dry breath that might once have been a laugh. “Every woman wears a mask. I just happened to choose the one that matched my dress.”
Jane searched her face. “Then what will you do?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “I will marry Captain Marlowe,” she said. “Or try to. Unless he disappears, like every other man who has ever made eye contact with me.”
“That is not fair.”
“No,” she said. “But it is statistically accurate.”
The silence stretched until Jane broke it, her voice tentative: “If you asked me to write to him, I would.”
Elizabeth looked at her. “Who?”
“Mr. Darcy.”
The name landed like a door shutting.
Elizabeth turned away. “No. I do not even know what I would say. And he has his own problems. He does not need mine.”
Another coach passed. Candlelight glimmered on the panes. Someone inside laughed.
She imagined him out there, maybe laughing too. Maybe not.
She let go of Jane’s hand. Stood. Smoothed the front of her gown.
“We will not speak of it again.”
And crossed the room like a woman who had practiced walking away from things she wanted.
7 January
“Would you mind tyingthis for me, Jackson?” Darcy said at the door, holding the coat at its collar rather than slipping it on.
